Читать книгу Send Pics - Lauren McLaughlin - Страница 15

I turned my phone off after a full hour of messages and calls from Lydia and Ani, trying to pull me out of my funk. But sometimes the funk is where you need to be. So that’s where I am. I’m in the funk, at Wingaersheek Beach, sitting on the rocks while the tide comes in. I have about half an hour before I get stranded here. When things turn to shit, this is where I come. This is my rock, my shoreline, my horizon to stare at. Freshman year, when things were at their worst, I used to ride my bike out here and sit until dinnertime. I’d tell my parents I was at the library, because I knew they wouldn’t understand why I spent so much time sitting on a rock by myself. It’s not like I ever actually figure things out when I come here. The rocks and the foam and the straight-line horizon never have any kind of advice or insight. I come here to feel small. Being here reminds me that, in the scheme of things, my troubles are miniscule. Right now, between the horizon and me, some little fish is losing its life to a bigger fish. And on and on and on.

Below me, the water circles all the way around my rock. It’s time to head back or risk getting stranded. So I climb down, carrying my sneakers, and let my bare feet sink into the soft, wet sand. When I look across the beach, Ani and Lydia are coming over the boardwalk.

“I told you she’d be here,” Ani says.

Lydia reaches me first and throws her arms around me. “Has the traitor formerly known as Suze Tilman called?”

“I shut my phone off.”

“Good.” Lydia takes out her own phone and shuts it off too. “Let’s all go analog. Give her a taste of her own medicine.”

“Hey guys?” Ani says, looking at her phone. “I have a missed call from Suze’s mom.”

“Really?”

“Should I call back?”

“No,” Lydia says. She takes Ani’s phone, shuts it off, and gives it back to her. “Suze made her choice. We don’t need to talk to her or her parents.”

“But why would her Mom be calling?”

“Maybe Suze ran off with Tarkin,” Lydia says. “Maybe we’ll never hear from her again. Fine by me.”

Ani looks at me, assuming I’ll be the voice of reason here. Lydia can be hotheaded and it’s usually on me to calm her down. But I’m with Lydia on this one. What Suze did to me this morning is unforgiveable. She made me feel something I haven’t felt since freshman year: discounted. She reminded me that the truth doesn’t matter. That Tarkin Shaw can do whatever he wants, then make up a story to cover his ass and nobody will challenge him on it. That’s why I never told anyone, except Ani, Lydia, and Suze. I knew people would blame it all on me, or claim I was exaggerating, which is exactly what Suze did this morning. And all that talk about how I’m gold and Tarkin Shaw is nothing? Bullshit. He’s not nothing. He’s everything. And I’m not gold. I’m collateral damage. Trash on the discard pile.

I’m about to say, “Shields up,” ready to block out the rest of the world. But then I remember that Suze came up with it. We were in the parking lot of the multiplex after seeing Wonder Woman, and she was going on and on about how amazing it would be if women joined together to maximize their power, because women’s power almost never comes from hatred or violence. It comes from love. I wonder if she remembers that.

“Fuck her,” I say. “And her mother.”